


Out of Sight, Out of Mind

by Jadedphase



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Jasper anxiety, M/M, set shortly after I am Become Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1766524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadedphase/pseuds/Jadedphase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jasper has come to depend on the security of the people he needs to keep his sanity steady, and he just can’t understand why nobody else seemed to notice how dire it is when Monty disappears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Sight, Out of Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Written for the request by wholedamntime; ‘I kind of want one called ‘out of sight, out of mind’ where Jasper’s just really worried about Monty being missing and not being used to not seeing him.’

Jasper was starting to feel as though his skin were peeling from the inside out, in a strange way the defied scratching and could not be ignored, that tiny little irritation that most people shrugged off as too much restless energy. But to Jasper, who was in fact not like most people, the sensation felt like a thousand little needle points inside his nerves demanding he move right that moment, somehow, and the direction made no difference.

For where he sat on the edge of his bed Jasper fidgeted, reached down to adjust the leg of his dusty pants, rubbed his fingers on his kneecap, then finally sighed and shook his head as he bounced to his feet.

"I’m gonna see if Bellamy needs anybody to watch the wall," he announced to the air around him, to the empty tent, swinging his gaze around with a frown drawn across his lips when he remembered that Monty wasn’t there. Monty had gone outside earlier that morning while he had still been trying to sleep off a long night of tossing and turning and he remembered finally as he sat there listening to the silence that he was alone.

Feeling a bit foolish over having only the inside of the tent as an audience, Jasper scurried out of the small space before it started to feel like it was closing in even more on him; he needed air and something to occupy himself.

Even if that meant putting some work in around the camp, any task to keep his attention somewhere other than running in circles around inside his own brain.

With both Clarke and Bellamy nowhere to be seen, off on some official leader business no doubt, Jasper circled the camp twice in search of a distraction. He made a mental note to bring it up to Monty later just what sort of business it was that kept those two going off on runs outside the camp together so often lately, it really just begged for some entertaining discussion. And he and Monty would laugh, in the safety of their tent, about how those two weren’t fooling anybody and it would be far less dangerous than incurring the wraith of Bellamy if he happened to overhear in the common area.

Where was Monty anyway?

So far as Jasper had known Monty didn’t leave the camp much, he worked out little important details there and was always somewhere amid the usual motions of the open space everyone shared. Monty details, things that Monty did well that generally went unnoticed; trying to work out how to grow food or making sense of patterns in the weather, perfecting his still, all the things that Jasper expected him to be doing.

But none of which he was doing at the time, regardless of how many times Jasper checked the little corners of the camp where he would stumble across that familiar face any other time. ‘

When he spotted Raven he waved her down and hurried to catch up, ending up with an armload of scavenged metal for his efforts once he did reach her and she passed off part of what she had been carrying to him. He shifted and squirmed to balance it, following her off to the drop ship,

"Have you seen Monty?"

"You can put those on the table," Raven directed him with the edge of her elbow while she laid her own load of scrap in a pile, "I thought you had some psychic bond where the two of you always knew where each other was."

Even knowing she was teasing only barely brought a smile to his face, it was strained with an underlying hint of worry. She couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the joke though as she watched him rock back on his heels and do that strange furrow of his brow that made his nose twitch; even just starting to get to know him and she already knew the signs of Jasper getting anxious.

"I really haven’t seen him today," she admitted, "did you check over by the far wall? He was there yesterday working on something."

"He’s not there. I checked everywhere he usually is."

Which did very little for the uneasy feeling in the back of his mind that it was not okay for Monty to be somewhere else, to be missing; people who went missing around the camp didn’t always come back.

Raven could nearly read his eyes and watch the wheels turning inside his skull, but she couldn’t imagine that Monty had simply disappeared into thin air.

"Maybe he went with Clarke," she suggested as she handed Jasper pieces of the scrap metal and pointed out the various spots she wanted them sorted into to keep him busy rather than only standing there trying to ignore his restless motions.

It did help, having something to do with his hands and not having to think about it beyond matching up sizes of bits of metal.

"Bellamy went with Clarke," he replied and paused when he noticed a scorched edge to the chunk of steel she handed him, "what is this?"

"From the crash site."

Raven glanced at him when she realized he had stopped sorting and was only standing there holding the broken panel, rubbing his fingertips along the edges while he stared at it. After a long moment she reached over and took the panel away gently, placing it amid the others already sorted.

"Jasper?"

"Yeah, I think I’m going to go check again," he replied, eyes already drawn back towards the the doorway, "I mean, unless you still need help."

Right about then Raven had a feeling that any help she may have gotten would have put her two steps back and twice as long trying to finish, if she could even keep his attention half that long.

"I think I can manage," Raven watched as he made it as far as the doorway then added, "if you still need help looking I’ll be done soon."  
She caught sight of the bob of his head and the utter of ‘thanks’ marked with a weak smile before he was gone, leaving her standing there trying to make sense of the mess laid out on the table in front of her.

 

Outside the sun had hit the point in the skies overhead that marked it midday and Jasper kept eying that glowing golden marker with growing apprehension, making another search of the camp and counting off on his fingers each person as he passed them.

One, two, three, four, five, and the numbers went on and on until they reached past the twenties and not a single one of them was the right one.

Dragging his shoes through the dirt, kicking at sticks, Jasper slid his gaze from side to side, his brain dredging through the muddy spots where it was difficult to separate notions from questions and it felt like too many of the latter had gathered in the empty spaces between his stray thoughts with nowhere to go. The idle chatter that took up his spare time was absent since the one usually audience to it was only an empty space at his side .

When his hands found their way to the wall around the camp and his gaze fixed on a space between the crocked boards and sheets of metal Jasper stared out into the thick forest beyond; twisted branches and sharp-edged leaves looking more sinister the longer he watched them, the shaking breeze rattling them like dried bones.

If Monty were there he would have told him not to be so caught up the bad thoughts, that leaves were simply leaves and trees were not going to reach out and grab anyone. He was only letting his vivid mind run away with itself again. 

But it was nearly impossible to listen to the logic when he knew that Monty himself could have been out there somewhere with the trees, the wild animals, and most alarming of all; the Grounders.

 

Eyes straining to pick apart the various hues of plant from shadow and fading sunlight, fingers flexing on the uneven surface in time with the skip-beat of his pulse, Jasper stared until the sway of the breeze nearly hypnotism him.

One breath, two, three, and a lethargic heaviness settled over him, thoughts rolling away and past his sluggish lips; “I think we should go back to the tent, it’ll be night soon.”

But there was nobody there to agree to the suggestion and Jasper was jolted out of his passive moment into a fit of nervous unsteadiness that sent his eyes rolling, searching once again.

If nobody else was going to notice Monty was gone, and why would he be gone for so long if something hadn’t been wrong, then he’d simply go and find him all on his own. He wasn’t going to allow Monty to simply fade into the dark corners of the Earth like too many already had, not his best friend, not that one person.

Because Monty was important, equally as important as Jasper himself, maybe a little more so in most cases if it really came down to Jasper being honest and weighing out what measured stronger; rescuing Monty or safeguarding his own disjointed self.

What was either of them without the other anyway?

The idea of finding out left Jasper feeling sick in the pit of his stomach as he tore away from the wall and stumbled, everything was reeling inside his skull and dizziness washed over him in a thick wave that was too much to handle all at once. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking even when he pressed his palms to tightly shut eyes; everything felt so very, very wrong and overwhelming.

For a terrifying instant he couldn’t breathe or think, couldn’t do anything at all; it was as if someone had drawn a curtain over him and everything else just fell away into nothing but darkness, looming, thick darkness.

 

"Jasper."

The voice seemed so familiar, he was certain he knew it as well as he did his own, and it was coaxing light into that darkness that had fallen down to suffocate him. If he tried he could reach it, that spot the voice came from, and force his protesting eyelids up inches at a time until everything came back into gradual focus and Jasper saw the thread-worn fabric above him and felt the stiff sensation of unyielding surface under his back; it took a moment to make sense of the fact that he was in his tent.

The last thing he remembered was sharp anxiety and stepping away from the fence, wanting to look for Monty. But that didn’t matter because Monty was leaning over to study him, a look of vague worry on his features.

"You back in the real world again?"

"What?" Jasper mumbled, not certain he understand the question or what it meant, only that it was a relief to hear Monty’s voice.

"Finn said you passed out, a couple of people saw you acting weird and then you just dropped, he brought you back here," Monty explained as best he could since he hadn’t been present to witness the event.

There was concern lingering around his eyes though and he sat at the edge of the cot where Jasper lay, looking down on him with the sort of careful study that meant he was trying to sort out the situation. As much as Monty hated to voice the fact he had noticed how rattled Jasper could get now, how lately there were sudden moments where what had been normal anxious nature and awkwardness turned into panic over the strangest things.

Something had dug under Jasper’s skin ever since he had been wounded and even Monty wasn’t certain how to do more than wait out the panic attacks, hopeful the next one wouldn’t be as bad as the last.

"I thought you were gone," Jasper mumbled in an exhausted tone, reaching up to prod at the front of Monty’s jacket to assure himself that he was indeed there in the flesh and blood and not simply something his mind had worked up to keep him passive.

Because it wasn’t really unless he could feel it, people were not real until they were solid under his search grasp; not on Earth where too much was built upon lies and he could not fully trust even his own thought not to invent wild images that were not truly there.

Monty could only offer a weak smile and grabbed the hand, gripping it in a comforting squeeze; “I’m back now.”

It appeased Jasper for the moment, he nodded and started to sit up but stopped when Monty shook his head and gave him a nudge back down with his palm pressed to his chest. There was very little protest in him at that point, nor any reason to argue the idea of lying back down since his head still was aching and there was a faint dizziness nipping around inside his skull.

"It’s late, after dark, might as well go back to sleep," Monty explained while he shrugged off his jacket to to get ready for bed. And once he had set the bulky garment aside he never had the chance to retreat to his own cot because a hand lifted again and caught him by the t-shirt, pulling him closer and down to the narrow space where Monty had to scramble to find room to fit legs and arms and all the rest of him.

Jasper didn’t care about the physics to it as he jerked Monty down into that tangle of limbs and sudden affection; in a blur of anxious motion hands were at his sides, his ribs, skirting over thin fabric and finally wrapped behind his neck as he was hauled into a mashing of lips together that was more needy contact than proper kiss.

Monty didn’t mind, it barely registered when their teeth clattered together and Jasper was spreading his fingers over his shoulders to hold him steady while his best friend delved past the soft affection into that desperate pressing closer that started at their lips and ended with an arching that nearly knocked him off balance, and would have if not for Jasper’s hands roaming to the dip of his lower back to steady him.

"I’m not going anywhere," Monty laughed when there was a break in that kiss so they could both answer the subtle ache of their lungs for air; his lips were tingling from the memory of that bruising kiss and the spots where Jasper’s fingertips were digging into the notches of his spine were like tiny pinpoints of sensation impossible to ignore.

Jasper sighed as though the entire world were crashing down and his eyes gleamed haunted from the inside out as he spoke with a strained tone; “But you did today.”

It had only been for a few hours, Monty could have argued, barely half the day; but he could see in that pained expression that Jasper was truly worried that he was going to somehow disappear. And Monty wished, more strongly than he had ever wanted to be able to promise anything, that he could say he never would be gone. It might have been a lie though; the chance that one of the would indeed be forced to go on one day without the other was very real in that violent world.

But lies were kinder sometimes and the truth could be left, bitter and as chilly as ice, for other days.

"But I came back," Monty reasoned, "I’ll always come back."

Jasper may not have truly believed it but he wanted to so badly that it was enough for right then, for that anxiety-riddled day where he had felt so distinctly alone without Monty a few steps nearby. It would be like that more and more often as time passed, they both knew that, as they had to adapt to living within a place that wasn’t simply a few square feet of space encased in steel; the world was so much larger now.

But Jasper wasn’t ready yet to consider that Monty would not always be near; there was too much inside him rattled already to face that burden on top of everything either. So Monty permitted him the idea of that emotional safety because the fact that Jasper so desperately wanted to make certain he didn’t disappear meant more than Monty could voice.

Hands only seconds before so demanding had slowed to sweeping contact instead, sensation dragging up and down Monty’s spine spurred by Jasper’s fingertips, subtle coaxing that led to anther kiss, brushing and lazy by the time Monty’s palms had landed one against the bony expanse of his best friend’s collarbones and the other flat to the cot.

Once they came up for air again Jasper shifted and shut his eyes for an instant, a passive smile stretched across his lips that dissolved into a yawn as that intensity ebbed into comfortable lull.

"M’so damn tired," he confessed sheepishly with the long day catching up at last in the wake of that reassurance.

Monty chuckled and nodded in agreement more for Jasper’s sake than his own, as tempting of an idea as it was they were both too worn down to be too indulgent that evening; and there was always the morning to pick back up where they’d left off.

"Going to stay here?

It was a sleepy sort of plea that Monty answered with a gentle nudge to gain a little more space on the cot; the effort ended in some shifting around and finally Jasper’s chin against his shoulder and his lanky arm hanging across his side in a way that didn’t feel nearly as caging as it was soothing.

Sleep would reach them both shortly, Monty had no doubt, hopefully pleasant dreams and restful calm; but even if nightmares came creeping through the darkness they would be stronger facing it together, and that was all that mattered in the end.


End file.
